A newly imposed tax on sugary drinks sold within Philadelphia likely earned a fraction of the revenue its advocates had expected, city officials said Tuesday.Philly had hoped that the 1.5 cent-per-ounce tax on sodas and other sweetened drinks would reap about $7.6 million each month for City Hall upon taking effect Jan. 1. According to preliminary data, however, the levy earned the city a measly $2.3 million during its first month on the books, or only 30 percent of what was expected, local media reported Tuesday.

Grocery stores and wholesalers alike now say they’re weighing potential layoffs to make up for lost profits attributed on the excise.

Jeff Brown, the owner of six ShopRite grocery stores within city limits, said beverage sales slipped 50 percent from Jan. 1 to Feb. 17 over the previous year’s figures, and cited a 15 percent overall dip in sales at city stores. As a result, according to Mr. Brown, he’s already eliminated about 280 jobs and is eyeing additional layoffs in the coming months.

“In 30 years of business, there’s never been a circumstance in which we’ve ever had a sales decline of any significant amount,” Mr. Brown told Bloomberg recently. “I would describe the impact as nothing less than devastating.”

Another company closely tied to the local food industry, beverage distributor Canada Dry Delaware Valley, reportedly expects to lay off 20 percent of its workforce in March on account of similarly suffering from devastating sales last month. The company distributes about 20 percent of the city’s soft drinks, and witnessed a 45 percent loss in sales during the month of January, its owner told the Inquirer.

“People are seeing sales decline larger than anything they’ve seen up to this point in the city,” Alex Baloga, the vice president of external relations for the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, told the Inquirer.

City Hall responded with skepticism to reports of the soda tax’s toll, however, and accused critics of fearmongering in hopes of ensuring other cities don’t adopt similar rules.

“I didn’t think it was possible for the soda industry to be any greedier,” Mayor Jim Kenney told the Inquirer. “They are so committed to stopping this tax from spreading to other cities that they are not only passing the tax they should be paying onto their customer, they are actually willing to threaten working men and women’s jobs rather than marginally reduce their seven-figure bonuses.”

Philadelphia had hoped its infant soda tax would earn upwards of $91 million in annual revenue to be allocated towards various educational and recreational programs throughout the city. The tax amounts to an additional $1.44 being applied to each six-pack of 16-ounce soda bottles, The Associated Press reported.

I'm sure that there were those that predicted this very thing would happen, and now that it has, the soda taxers will either: A) ignore the impact, and/or B) proclaim their shock that it happened.

_________________The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.- misattributed to Alexis De Tocqueville

No representations made as to the accuracy of info in posted news articles or links

Unexpectedly, Oakland’s soda tax money may be going… elsewherePOSTED AT 10:41 AM ON MAY 2, 2017 BY JAZZ SHAW

Last year, following in the footsteps of Berkeley, Philadelphia and other liberal bastions, the city of Oakland decided to save the citizens from themselves by passing a sin tax on soda and other “sugary beverages.” When the residents agreed to put it on the ballot in the spring it was being sold as a measure which would help “combat obesity” and fight the Big Soda Lobby. And the city’s politicians were quick to tell everyone how badly this revenue stream was needed while being far less specific about how the money they collected would be handled. (SF Gate, emphasis added)

If voters approve the tax, the money raised would go into the city’s general fund, and officials said the idea is to earmark it to pay for health and education programs in the community and in schools. The measure requires the city to create an advisory board to recommend how to spend the money.

You’ll note that the city’s leaders didn’t actually have a direct allocation of the funding set up, so it was going to go into the general fund. But no worries, mate. I’m sure they can be trusted.

The measure passed in November with the tax going into effect shortly thereafter. So problem solved, eh? I’m sure people are losing weight and living healthier lifestyles all over the place already, thanks to the dollars being hijacked out of shoppers’ wallets when they go to buy groceries.

Or perhaps not. Keep in mind that this was all taking place at the end of last year. It’s only a few months later now and there’s about to be some editing done as to where that soda tax money goes. Who could have guessed? (CBS Local News)

Mayor Libby Schaaf says Oakland is facing a $32 million budget shortfall. She wants to help fill the gap by diverting $6 million of soda tax.

Many people are upset because city leaders promised voters the money would be used for health programs.

“It’s a bait and switch by the mayor,” says resident Louis Nagel.

The mayor is now saying that the soda tax money will be going to budget items including libraries, parks, fixing potholes and affordable housing. Pardon me for being so rude as to point this out, but that sounds suspiciously like the normal day-to-day business of any city’s typical operations. What does that have to do with combating the Big Soda Lobby and fighting obesity?

The answer, of course, is… nothing. The politicians in Oakland conducted an extensive (and expensive) campaign to get the residents to agree to a new tax which hit the city’s poorest families the hardest, selling it as some sort of experiment in social justice and cleaner living. But they routed the tax money through the general fund so they would retain the option of spending it however they chose. And in a matter of months that was precisely what they were doing.

Sin taxes such as these are a joke. They are vehicles for politicians to get the taxpayers to agree to pony up more cash under the guise of doing something noble but they wind up being yet another cash grab. And now that the tax is on the books it will likely prove immensely difficult (if not impossible) to repeal. Well played, Oakland. You’ve managed to swindle your own voters once again while delivering pretty much nothing that you promised in return.

Oh my.....who could have ever seen this coming?

_________________The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.- misattributed to Alexis De Tocqueville

No representations made as to the accuracy of info in posted news articles or links

Unexpectedly, Oakland’s soda tax money may be going… elsewherePOSTED AT 10:41 AM ON MAY 2, 2017 BY JAZZ SHAW

Last year, following in the footsteps of Berkeley, Philadelphia and other liberal bastions, the city of Oakland decided to save the citizens from themselves by passing a sin tax on soda and other “sugary beverages.” When the residents agreed to put it on the ballot in the spring it was being sold as a measure which would help “combat obesity” and fight the Big Soda Lobby. And the city’s politicians were quick to tell everyone how badly this revenue stream was needed while being far less specific about how the money they collected would be handled. (SF Gate, emphasis added)

If voters approve the tax, the money raised would go into the city’s general fund, and officials said the idea is to earmark it to pay for health and education programs in the community and in schools. The measure requires the city to create an advisory board to recommend how to spend the money.

You’ll note that the city’s leaders didn’t actually have a direct allocation of the funding set up, so it was going to go into the general fund. But no worries, mate. I’m sure they can be trusted.

The measure passed in November with the tax going into effect shortly thereafter. So problem solved, eh? I’m sure people are losing weight and living healthier lifestyles all over the place already, thanks to the dollars being hijacked out of shoppers’ wallets when they go to buy groceries.

Or perhaps not. Keep in mind that this was all taking place at the end of last year. It’s only a few months later now and there’s about to be some editing done as to where that soda tax money goes. Who could have guessed? (CBS Local News)

Mayor Libby Schaaf says Oakland is facing a $32 million budget shortfall. She wants to help fill the gap by diverting $6 million of soda tax.

Many people are upset because city leaders promised voters the money would be used for health programs.

“It’s a bait and switch by the mayor,” says resident Louis Nagel.

The mayor is now saying that the soda tax money will be going to budget items including libraries, parks, fixing potholes and affordable housing. Pardon me for being so rude as to point this out, but that sounds suspiciously like the normal day-to-day business of any city’s typical operations. What does that have to do with combating the Big Soda Lobby and fighting obesity?

The answer, of course, is… nothing. The politicians in Oakland conducted an extensive (and expensive) campaign to get the residents to agree to a new tax which hit the city’s poorest families the hardest, selling it as some sort of experiment in social justice and cleaner living. But they routed the tax money through the general fund so they would retain the option of spending it however they chose. And in a matter of months that was precisely what they were doing.

Sin taxes such as these are a joke. They are vehicles for politicians to get the taxpayers to agree to pony up more cash under the guise of doing something noble but they wind up being yet another cash grab. And now that the tax is on the books it will likely prove immensely difficult (if not impossible) to repeal. Well played, Oakland. You’ve managed to swindle your own voters once again while delivering pretty much nothing that you promised in return.

Oh my.....who could have ever seen this coming?

This kind of shit happens so regularly.. how are people still letting themselves be fooled by such new taxes & tax increases?

The only answer I see:

The politicians know that proclaiming some normal part of life will become some terrible and destructive thing any day now, if you don't give them a steady stream of money to fix it.

"Give us more money or you'll really pay!"

It's in evidence all too often. I look at the Anthropogenic Climate Doomers the same way, except they've managed to spread to a much larger scale in recent years, since first starting 40+ years ago.

Study: Philadelphia Tax Makes Soda More Expensive Than BeerTax falling short of projections, forcing Philadelphians to buy soda outside of city

BY: Elizabeth Harrington August 8, 2017 5:00 am

Philadelphia's tax on sugary drinks has made soda more expensive than beer in the city.

The Tax Foundation released a new study on the excise tax last week, finding that the 1.5-cent per ounce tax has fallen short of revenue projections, cost jobs, and has forced some Philadelphians to drive outside the city to buy groceries.

The study finds that the tax is 24 times higher than the Pennsylvania tax rate on beer.

"Purchases of beer are also now less expensive than nonalcoholic beverages subject to the tax in the city," according to the study, written by Courtney Shupert and Scott Drenkard. "Empirical evidence from a 2012 journal article suggests that soda taxes can push consumers to alcohol, meaning it is likely the case that consumers are switching to alcoholic beverages as a result of the tax. The paper, aptly titled From Coke to Coors, further shows that switching from soda to beer increases total caloric intake, even as soda taxes are generally aimed at caloric reduction."

The Tax Foundation points out that unlike most cities, Philadelphia passed the tax specifically to raise revenue, not to fight obesity. The city even includes diet sodas in its tax, as a way to raise money for pre-kindergarten programs.

However, less than half of the $39.4 million collected since the tax went into effect on Jan. 1 has gone to education funding.

"[T]he tax was originally promoted as a vehicle to raise funds for prekindergarten education, but in practice it awards just 49 percent of the soda tax revenues to local pre-K programs," Shupert and Drenkard write. "Another 20 percent of the soda tax revenues fund government employee benefits or city programs, while the rest of the money will go towards parks, libraries, and community schools."

Collections from the soda tax are also well below original projections of $92 million per year, due to tax avoidance.

"Soda sales in Philadelphia have also declined since the tax went into effect at the beginning of 2017, threatening the long-run sustainability of the tax," Shupert and Drenkard write. "According to some local distributors and retailers, sales have declined by nearly 50 percent. This is likely primarily due to higher prices, which discourage purchasing beverages in the city."

Earlier this year PepsiCo announced it was laying off up to 100 workers because of the tax, which the company blames for costing a 43 percent drop in business.

Philadelphians are also no longer able to buy 12-packs or 2-liters of Pepsi products in grocery stores due to the tax, the Tax Foundation said.

"From an operational standpoint, the tax rollout continues to create problems for the city as collections have come in less than projected," the Tax Foundation added. "In July, city officials lowered beverage tax revenue projections by 14 percent, leaving the pre-kindergarten programs that the tax promised to fund in jeopardy."

"Furthermore, soda taxes are regressive, hurting low-income earners the most. Philadelphia's experience serves as a cautionary tale for other areas weighing similar beverage taxes," the group said.

How will they solve the issue of soda taxes being 24 times higher than the tax on beer?I would wager that they will raise the taxes on beer.

_________________The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.- misattributed to Alexis De Tocqueville

No representations made as to the accuracy of info in posted news articles or links

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